Judge Maria Giraudi ordered that the singer’s belongings be held after photographer Diego Pesoa filed suit for damages, alleging that Bieber’s bodyguards hit him and damaged his equipment as the singer was leaving a nightclub.

Pesoa’s lawyer, Matias Morla, said Bieber “gave the order to beat him and then got back in his van.”

The Mensalão trials convicted 25 people over a scheme to pay opposition politicians 30,000 reais (around US$12,000 at the time) every month in order to vote for legislation favored by then-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Mensalão” means “big monthly allowance”, and it was. The scandal burst into the scene in 2005.

Folha de Sao Paulo outlines how the key members of Lula’s party, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) channeled funds to Marcos Valério Fernandes de Souza’s ad agencies that had government contracts, funneling the payments through the Banco Rural.

Their lawyers will be able to put their kids through Princeton University; heck, the lawyers will have enough money left to retire in Princeton, if they ever get to retire! This is going to be drawn out for decades:

Brazil’s Supreme Court voted Wednesday to reassess the landmark convictions it handed down against a dozen defendants found guilty last year of participating in a vote-buying scheme that rocked the government of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The 6-5 vote allows 12 of the 25 defendants in the case, including Mr. da Silva’s once-powerful chief of staff José Dirceu, to appeal parts of their prison sentences, which could open the door to lengthy retrials. Mr. Dirceu maintains his innocence and says he is a target of political retribution.

The decision could send shock waves through a country that has long struggled with corruption, and where many held up the court’s earlier convictions of the defendants as a sign of change. The cash-for-votes scandal, dubbed the Mensalão, or ‘big monthly payoff’, resulted in Brazil’s biggest-ever political corruption trial.

Instead, the retrials now risk becoming a symbol of the inability of Brazilian prosecutors to make high-profile corruption convictions stick, said José Garcez Ghirardi, a professor of political theory and law at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas law school in São Paulo.

Something also tells me the film will be devoid of any input by Roberto Martin Perez and others who suffered the longest terms of political incarceration in modern history because of Morgan’s treachery. After all, their anti-Castro plot, as the New Yorker article explains (echoing Castro) had nothing whatsoever to do with restoring Cuba’s freedom. Instead it was inspired by the wicked dictator Rafael Trujillo.

According to Armando Lago about 2000 Cubans were murdered by firing squad while Morgan loyally served Castro. Indeed in 1959-60 many of the men and boys cramming La Cabana’s galeras were were there because of Morgan’s treachery.

Morgan lived in a mansion during this time, had a fancy car and owned a frog farm. Might it occur to Clooney to ask how this AWOL GI, deadbeat-Dad and ex-con managed to acquired these luxuries? In fact they were all stolen at gunpoint from their rightful Cuban owners. “Bienes Malversados”–INDEED!

Italy has instructed its ambassador to Brazil to ask the Brazilian government to form a bi-lateral commission to resolve a dispute over last week’s release of convicted Italian terrorist Cesare Battisti.

“On the instructions of foreign minister Franco Frattini, the Italian ambassador to Brazil to formally asked Brazilian authorities to activate the Permanent Commission of Conciliation as foreseen by a 1954 convention between Italy and Brazil,” the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Italy and Brazil signed the agreement “for the amicable settlement of any disputes which might arise between the two countries,” the document said.
Italian judges have sentenced former far-left armed militant Battisti in absentia to life in jail for four murders committed in the 1970s. He spent three decades on the run and has lived in France, Mexico and Brazil, where he was in jail from 2007 until his release on 9 June.

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s last official act before leaving office in December was to grant 56-year-old Battisti political refugee status on the recommendation of a report by Brazil’s attorney general.

Financial markets, which have been riding a roller coaster during the long campaign, are sure to take a win by Mr. Humala badly, analysts said. Investors viewed Ms. Fujimori as the candidate who would maintain the policies of openness toward foreign investment and trade, which helped Peru grow by 9% last year. Mr. Humala, who has made sharply contradictory statements on economic policy, would face pressure to immediately send signals to the market by revealing who would serve in key positions, such as Prime Minister and Economy Minister.

SUMMARY: Congressman James McGovern traveled in Ecuador from November 13 to 18, to visit sites at issue in the Chevron-Texaco oil pollution case, and Ecuadorian border communities affected by refugees and other aspects of the violence in Colombia. Congressman McGovern met with Government of Ecuador (GOE) Ministers and President Correa, and while taking no position on the unresolved Chevron-Texaco suit, expressed concern about the humanitarian, health and environmental impacts of oil contamination on local affected communities and the humanitarian situation on the border, and pledged to draw greater attention to the plight of refugees. Foreign Minister Salvador and Vice Defense Minister Miguel Carvajal asked McGovern for the U.S. Congress to investigate the March 1 Colombian attack against a FARC camp in Angostura, along the northern border of Ecuador, which McGovern did not agree to.

Retailers have put expansion plans on hold in the Mexican capital after the megacity’s government enacted a virtual three-year moratorium on openings of grocers, convenience stores and hypermarkets in an effort to shield traditional markets and small family-run bodegas from corporate competition.

The interesting thing here is that when originally reported it appeared that remitters would not be able to send more than $500 to Cuba per quarter. It now seems, however, that U.S. citizens can send $2,000 a year to as many qualified Cubans as they like. I’m not a lawyer and I received this information too late to call OFAC, so I can’t say for certain.